---
name: "vttest"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "vttest"
version: "2.7+20241208-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/vttest"
---

# vttest(1)

test VT100-type terminal

## NAME

vttest - test VT100-type terminal

## SYNOPSIS

**vttest *\[options\] \[24x80.132\]***

## DESCRIPTION

*Vttest* is a program designed to test the functionality of a VT100 terminal (or emulator thereof). It tests both display (escape sequence handling) and keyboard.

The program is menu-driven and contains full on-line operating instructions.

- •

  To run a given menu-item, you must enter its number.

- •

  Menu items start at zero; this is the “Exit” item in almost all cases.

- •

  You can run all menu-items (for a given level) by entering an asterisk, i.e, “\*'.

- •

  You can force a repaint of the menu items by entering “?”.

- •

  A few menus can be more than one page. Use “n” and “p” to switch to the next or previous page.

## OPTIONS

You can specify the screen geometry in the form *\[24x80.132\]*, i.e.,

- •

  24 lines,

- •

  80 minimum columns, and

- •

  132 maximum columns.

If your terminal does not switch between 80 and 132 columns you may specify 24x80.80, for example, to avoid a misleading display.

Other options are:

- **-V**

  print the program version, and exit.

- **-c** *commands*

  replay commands recorded by the logging option. Some keyboard and mouse input is required, depending on the tests, but otherwise menu selection and next-page responses are automated.

- **-f** *fontfile*

  specify a file containing a DRCS (soft character definition) string.

- **-l**

  log test results to *vttest.log*.

- **-p**

  use padding, e.g., for a VT100 connected to a high-speed line.

- **-q**

  show only the most recent part of a continuous response, e.g., any-event mouse tests, to improve readability of the test.

- **-s**

  add time-delay in selected panning/scrolling options to show details.

- **-u**

  suppress switch from UTF-8 mode on startup, and enable a third setting in the 7-bit/8-bit parsing test to allow for C2 controls as an alternate to 8-bit C1.

- **-8**

  use 8-bit controls (this can be changed with a menu option).

## ENVIRONMENT

When **vttest** starts, it checks the locale (LC\_ALL, etc.), to determine if the terminal uses UTF-8, and normally switches the terminal to ISO-8859 1. Use the “**-u**” option to disable this switching, and provide some special cases where UTF-8 encoding is accepted.

For example, the Unicode specification does not document its relationship to ECMA-48 (ISO 6429) beyond listing C0 and C1 codes which Unicode treats as whitespace. The latter (i.e., NEL U+0085) is misleading because Unicode describes C1 controls only obliquely. It goes into a little more detail regarding ECMA-35 (ISO 2022). **vttest** allows for both the standard encoding of C1 (single byte) and the variant implied by Unicode, referred to here as C2 (two bytes) to distinguish the two encodings.

## AUTHORS

Per Lindberg (mcvax,seismo)!enea!suadb!lindberg sometime 1985.

Modified by Thomas E. Dickey from June 1996, to support nonstandard screen geometry, VT220-VT525, ISO color and xterm-specific tests.

## SEE ALSO

```
XTerm Control Sequences
⟨https://\:invisible\-\:island\:.net/\:xterm/\:ctlseqs/\:ctlseqs\:.html⟩
DEC VT terminal line-wrapping semantics
⟨https://\:github\:.com/\:mattiase/\:wraptest/⟩
```